Comments on: Can a Book be TOO Gross?

By: Mer

Mer — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:37:48 +0000

Gina b: Heh. The whole backfiring thing is exactly how I felt when I finally got around to watch Mel Gibson’s Passion.

By: gina b

gina b — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:53:47 +0000

Back when I read horror, and before I thought Clive Barker made King look weak, I read a really GREAT story of King’s called “The Body”…the story “Stand by me” was based on. I was young at the time, but there is a VOMIT gross-you-out scene that was, well, hilarious. Of course, I had a much better sense of humor in my TWENTIES, but I thought it was worse than most of the stuff I had read by King in terms of grossness.

THEN I had kids. What on earth did I know from gross BEFORE THAT??? lol…

Actually, last year I read “The Historian” – a retelling of the Dracula tale – and honestly, the true life depictions of the atrocities by Vlad the Impaler ARE nasty…and unfortunately, made his characterization as a vampire seem mild by comparison. One book where the grossness backfired and diluted the horror.

By: ghostofaredrose

ghostofaredrose — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:53:04 +0000

I thought of another reason why you should not make the cutting-up-the-body scene in EofJ less gross. It is like the use of the F-word in the ‘Til Tuesday song (Believed You Are) Lucky. (You know the one.) When something really shocking is used only *once* (one time in the song, one scene in the book) the shock value (of the cuss word in the song, the grossness in the book) adds a strong emphasis (to that line of the song, that scene in your book.)

That is something entirely different from the endless repetitive grossness of some horror books and films (or the endless repetitive cussing in some songs.)

By: ghostofaredrose

ghostofaredrose — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:15:47 +0000

Oops, I need to be more specific. I mean, I agree with the beta readers about gross-you-out horror novels. Not about your book (for the reasons given above)!

By: ghostofaredrose

ghostofaredrose — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:11:33 +0000

I agree with the beta readers. I think a lot of gross-you-out stuff in a book is a cheap gimmick that tries to substitute for good writing and imagination. I know you’ve heard my theory on Stephen King, but for your other readers, here it is: I am convinced that more than one person is writing under the name of Stephen King. Some of his books are excellent – particularly his early writing. They are creative and in-depth. But many of them – the gross-out ones, for example – are awful. And the difference in writing styles seems glaringly obvious to me. I think that he wrote the early ones himself. Then once he was successful, he could afford to pay a ghost writer to churn out the yuk and make even more money for him.

Can I get sued for making this allegation in public (online)? OK, let it be known that this is just *my opinion*!

In your book, the gross stuff is used judiciously and is there for a reason.

By: Mer

Mer — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:10:47 +0000

and, also, I don’t particularly care for Mr. King’s novels. I prefer Clive Barker. More hardcore, more with the black magic, more with the moral ambiguity. It’s all a matter of taste.

By: Mer

Mer — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:06:46 +0000

Funny, the draft of the gruesome scene you showed me was… not so much, by my standards. the character was so dissociated from what she was doing, the gruesomeness came over as clinical — how she would have experienced it, in that frame of mind.

which, i think, means it was effectively presented. Of course, unlike SOME people in SOME writers groups (winkwink), I’m not morally opposed to genre fiction, so I tend to… embrace a wider diversity of human crisis, beyond the emotional and existential. (which is totally a stereotype of high lit snobs AND genre fic nerds, and I stand by it and also don’t care.)

By: Diane

Diane — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:30:35 +0000

I’m not into “gross” very often, but I love Stephen King. Whenever anyone who knows me well finds this out for the first time, they say, “YOU like STEPHEN KING???” Hey, the guy’s a master at dragging you into his books. So sometimes a little gore works, but then again if you pick up a King book, you know to expect it. I’ll be curious to read your book, Katrina!

By: TrudyJ

TrudyJ — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:46:38 +0000

I’m always hearing people say how GREAT a writer Stephen King is (people I respect — Joshilyn Jackson, for instead, thinks he is a GOD and dissed me for calling him a “good rather than great” writer on my website). But the only book of his that I’ve read apart from On Writing was Lisey’s Story, which I did like, but it’s much less horror-y than most of his work. I do NOT handle the gross-out well (I’m the person whose favourite TV show is House, except that I watch all the surgery scenes from behind my fingers) so I’m definitely one of the beta readers who couldn’t handle the blood and gore in EoJ. As you know.

By: addofio

addofio — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:32:42 +0000

Claire, Short for Clairvoyant is the one I saw the excerpt from. See, the problem is, you hooked me–then left me dangling.